Installing VisiData via pipx

pipx is a command-line tool that allows you to run Python applications in isolated environments. It's a great way to make VisiData available across your system without worrying that its dependencies will conflict with other Python projects. This short guide will show you how.

Step 0: Uninstall global VisiData

If you have have previously VisiData installed globally, uninstall it by running pip3 uninstall visidata.

Otherwise, you can skip this step.

Step 1: Install pipx

Installing pipx is easy, assuming you already have Python 3's pip installed. Just run the following commands:

python3 -m pip install --user pipx
python3 -m pipx ensurepath

Step 2: Install VisiData via pipx

Installing VisiData via pipx requires just one command:

pipx install visidata

To test that it worked, run vd --version.

Step 3: Install additional VisiData dependencies

VisiData comes pre-packaged with a few of its data-loading dependences, but not all of them. Luckily, it's easy to install additional libraries into your VisiData pipx environment:

pipx inject visidata LIBRARY_NAME [ANOTHER_LIBRARY ...]

For instance, to install the libraries required for opening Excel files:

pipx inject visidata xlrd openpyxl

And that's it!

Questions?

Contact Jeremy.